10 November 2010

Feast of Saint Andrew Avellino

Today is the feast day of Saint Andrew Avellino, patron of Naples and also invoked against unprovided and sudden death. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Born 1521 at Castronuovo, a small town in Sicily; died 10 November, 1608. His baptismal name was Lancelotto, which out of love for the cross he changed into Andrew when he entered the Order of Theatines. From his early youth he was a great lover of chastity. After receiving his elementary training in the school of Castronuovo, he was sent to Venice to pursue a course in the humanities and in philosophy. Being a handsome youth, his chastity was often exposed to danger from female admirers, and to escape their importunities he took ecclesiastical tonsure. Hereupon he went to Naples to study canon and civil law, obtained the degree of Doctor of Laws and was ordained priest at the age of twenty-six.

Now, here is my favorite part. Why? No comment:

For some time he held the office of lawyer at the ecclesiastical court of Naples. One day, while pleading the cause of a friend, a lie escaped his lips in the heat of argument. When, soon afterwards, his eyes fell upon the passage in the Bible, "The mouth that belieth killeth the soul"(Wisdom 1:11), he felt deep remorse, renounced his profession as ecclesiastical lawyer and for some time devoted himself entirely to holy meditation and other spiritual exercises.

A Day That Will Live in Glory

Pray for the Four Cardinals: Burke, Caffarra, Meiser and Brandmuller

“You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day."